


Nocturne in Purple and Green

by mage_cat



Series: Home, not Homeworld [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Cuddling, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 16:12:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5170178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mage_cat/pseuds/mage_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late one night Amethyst discovers Peridot being hit with the weight of her treason to Homeworld. Comforting her becomes a nightly ritual. Cuddling and baring of souls ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nocturne in Purple and Green

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not in continuity with my previous fic "Composition," but it should fit in better to the timeline of the actual show than that one did anyway.
> 
> Cross-posted to Tumblr here: http://mage-cat.tumblr.com/post/132847358175/nocturne-in-purple-and-green

As work on the drill to reach the Cluster continued, it became clear that Steven needed a few nights of sleep in his own bed. Pearl had fretted about not leaving Steven alone all night and how to balance that with the work schedule and prisoner watch, but in the end Garnet had made the call. She and Pearl would stay at the barn. Amethyst, Steven, and Peridot would return to the Temple for the night.

Amethyst was making a late-night raid on Steven's kitchen when she heard a whimpering sound coming from the bathroom. She knocked on the door and tried to find a volume that Peridot would hear, but that wouldn't wake Steven. “Peridot? You okay in there?”

“I'm fine,” came a strained voice through the door.

“You're a lousy lair. Let me in.”

“Go away.”

“You know I can break this door down. Then Pearl will have to fix it and she'll fuss and neither of us wanna hear that.”

The door opened a crack. Amethyst entered to see Peridot sitting on the edge of the tub with a thousand-yard stare. “Alright Peri, what's wrong?”

The reply came in a resigned monotone.“Shards. I am shards. It's just a matter of time. So many tiny green shards.”

“That's what you're worried about?” Amethyst sat next to her as Peridot continued to gaze at some point past the closed door. “Come on. Between you nerding over the Cluster, Pearl nerding over the Cluster, and Garnet's Future Vision working overtime, no one is getting blown up.”

“Even if we manage to neutralize the Cluster, I am still shards. I will have had a personal hand in derailing a project that Yellow Diamond has had in motion for longer than I have been alive. I am a traitor to Homeworld in general and Yellow Diamond in particular. It is only a matter of time before she sends someone else, and then I will be shards. If I am lucky.”

“You could always stay with us. We fight for each other.”

“Wonderful. We can all be shards together,” Her stare finally broke, as did her monotone. She began to quake. “S-serving Yellow Diamond has been-been my life. All 3,000 years of it. It is a-all I know, and it's g-g-gone.”

“Come here,” Amethyst said, pulling her into an embrace. “Let it out. You sound like I do before I run off to the Kindergarten and spend a couple of hours in my hole. Your hole's too far for that.”

“She left me here. Everything I've done and I'm still expendable.” Peridot continued to quake for some time, burrowing herself deeper into Amethyst's solid arms and chest.

“No one is expendable. Not here.” Amethyst grip tightened in response to the smaller Gem pulling herself in. Purple fingers worked their way into impossibly-styled yellow hair.

Slowly, the shaking stopped and the two Gems stayed silent and still for a long while until Amethyst began to suspect that Steven would be waking up soon. “Come on. Time to get back to work. We're not shards yet.”

* * *

The next night-time break at the Temple, Amethyst went to the bathroom to check on Peridot soon after Steven fell asleep. The unfocused stare hadn't returned, but the shaking had. This time Amethyst managed to pull her to the couch. There wasn't any reason not to make this as comfortable as possible. Now that she didn't have to balance on the bathtub edge, Peridot curled into a fetal position. Amethyst wrapped herself around Peridot, her mane of pale hair falling over her shoulder and near Peridot's face. The green Gem's nose filled with the musky scent of it, and she stopped shaking sooner this time.

In the close stillness that followed, Peridot nestled her head against Amethyst's chest. “What's that beating near your gem?”

“It's a heart,” Amethyst replied softly. “It has something to do with blood in humans. We all keep a few human organs shape-shifted in most of the time. Rose thought it was important for helping us understand life on this planet. I just like the rhythm of it.”

“I like it too.”

“You know, if you keep feeling like this, you might want to try crying. It's great for letting the pressure out of your head.”

“That's the process where liquid leaks from the eyes, correct?” Peridot asked, fiddling with a lock of lavender hair.

Amethyst let out a small grunt of a laugh. “Hey, you _do_ know the real word for 'vision sphere,' and yeah, that's the one.”

“It's a method for expressing sadness. I'm not sure that is the right word for this emotion.”

“It's also for frustration and anger and all the weird mixes between those feelings.”

“I guess I can see why you would have experience with that.”

“Yeah, Pearl and Garnet treat me like a kid. You're the first Gem to really treat me like an equal. I can sort of see why. I've never seen Homeworld. I was in the ground for the whole war, so I haven't been in anything like the big battles they were. It's kind of my fault too. I could tell Rose liked to think of me as innocent. Even after I stopped feeling like it, I played it up a lot of the time to make her smile. She had a great smile. When she was happy, we were all happy. But I heard the way they talked about the Kindergarten. It was horrible and I was part of it, so I thought that, deep down, I must be awful to.”

“There's nothing awful about you.”

“Sure there is. I'm impulsive and crude and sometimes I'm just mean. I asked you to make fun of my family, to make fun of _Steven_. Then I got mad when you kept going and told me something the others had never told me about myself.” Amethyst sighed. “We could bring out the worst in each other.”

“But we don't have to. Do we?”

“I guess not.”

Unlike the night before, Amethyst had a view of the window this time. As the sky turned pink, she and Peridot disentangled themselves from each other. Before much longer, Steven was awake and they headed back to the barn.

* * *

On the third night, Peridot stayed curled up on the couch as Steven went to bed. She was really only shivering slightly before Amethyst sat next to her and pulled her close. Without the chance to work herself up, Peridot calmed down almost immediately and was soon peacefully settled with her back against Amethyst's chest.

Amethyst began to play with one of the points of Peridot's hairstyle. “How does your hair work anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, 'cept for these bits,” Amethyst flicked one of the locks that framed Peridot's face, “I can't find any _ends_ to your hair. It just, like, loops back on itself or something.”

Peridot shrugged, “My hairstyle is standard, just another part of my uniform. I have never given it much thought.”

“So when you regenerate, you just make yourself look the same? You never try to change anything?”

“I've only ever regenerated once. I was too surprised to properly be aware of what was happening.”

“Us capturing you was the first time you'd ever gotten poofed?” Amethyst asked, surprise clear in her voice. “In 3,000 years? How did you manage that?”

Peridot shrugged again. “It's not like I was a front-line combatant.”

“For someone who wasn't supposed to be fighting, you were pretty well armed, what with that blaster and everything.”

“I didn't _have_ a blaster. I _rigged_ a blaster.”

“Dang. Really? Respect.”

“I was surprised that it worked.”

“Well, sorry to tell you, but you're probably not going to go 3,000 years around here without getting poofed again. You might have some fun experimenting next time.” Amethyst's hand found its way to Peridot's. Purple fingers designed for punching and whip-wielding examined green ones designed for tinkering with delicate machinery. “Are you still upset that I threw away your limb enhancers?”

Peridot's voice hardened slightly. “It was a tactically sound decision on your part.”

“That's not what I asked.”

Peridot considered the question for a moment. When she answered, the edge that had briefly entered her voice was gone again. “I miss the functionality. I miss my research and my screen. Mostly I miss being able to reach high shelves without standing on something. But I do not miss the weight of them the way I did at first.”

“Why not just shape-shift yourself taller when you need to? That's what I do.”

“I've never shape-shifted. I couldn't with my limb enhancers because they could not shift with me. Now I am just not sure how to try.” Peridot squirmed a bit, but before Amethyst could loosen her hold, she settled back in and let out a bitter sigh. “They were keeping me weak. Yellow Diamond made me rely on my limb enhancers for everything I should have been learning to do with my own powers. How did I never see that?”

“There's something my friend Vidalia says 'Normal is what you're used to.' If you always had your limb enhancers, why would you think that there was anything weird about having them?”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“And it's another reason for you to stay. Helping you learn your powers has gotta be easier than teaching Steven. His whole half-human thing means we're not really sure what all his powers will be. At least we can be pretty sure about yours.”

“Do you really think the others will let me stay?”

“Well, me and Steven totally want you to, that's half your votes right there, and now that you're at least _trying_ not to insult Pearl and Garnet, I'm sure they'll come around. So you're saying you wanna stay?”

“Yes,” Peridot pulled Amethyst's arms tighter around herself. “I want to stay.”


End file.
